Classens, the master, was in the waist to greet him when he climbed aboard.
'Ye're early astir, sir,' the smiling, rubicund Dutchman commended him.
'As becomes a messenger of Heaven,' was the cryptic answer, in which for long thereafter Mynheer Classens vainly sought the jest he supposed to be wrapped in it.
They were in the act of weighing anchor when the Heron, crowding canvas, went rippling past them out to sea, a disgruntled, raging, fearful Heron in full flight from the neighbourhood of the hawks. And in all this adventure that was Captain Blood's only regret.